Here’s how Google is pitching its self-driving cars to government agencies

Google’s monthly self-driving car reports are fun to read through, and gives transparent accounts of what the team is up to, how the cars are performing, and any lessons learned along the way.

A new study from Juniper Research forecasts almost 20 million fully autonomous or self-driving vehicles on the road by 2025, with consumer adoption set to take off in 2021. Driven by increased safety and convenience for drivers, Juniper says ‘development has progressed to live trials with North America and West Europe set to become the first to witness driverless cars in use on the road.’ The research found that in the interim, consumer usage of ADAS (Advanced Driving Assistance System) technologies such as adaptive cruise control and automated braking will become key. But the problem is once the auto companies get on to something, they don’t know when to stop,” Nader was quoted as saying. “And so they are turning the automobile into an ever more complicated computer on wheels. Although no one knows for certain, it seems that Google is the one company working on autonomous driving technology that has not expressed an interest in building its own cars. Which means that the driver is losing control to the software, and the more the driver loses control to the software, the less the driver is going to be able to control the car down the road.” His comments this week came on the 50th anniversary of the publication of his 1965 book “Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile,” in which he blasted the safety record of U.S. auto manufacturers.

Stakeholders are currently investigating multiple business models with manufacturers expected to engage in product licensing, self-production or open sourcing the systems. These companies were scored on a number of key factors such as live trials, miles tested on road, technology development, project scale and scope and market opportunities. From the very beginning we designed our prototypes for learning; we wanted to see what it would really take to design, build, and operate a fully self-driving vehicle — something that had never existed in the world before.

Only 32% of US residents said automakers would be the ideal manufacturer of such vehicles. “This survey is reassuring news for traditional automotive companies,” says Nikolaus Lang, a BCG senior partner who worked on the research. “Our results indicate that consumers primarily expect original equipment manufacturers to play a leading role in the roll out of self driving vehicles, with technology players such as Apple and Google contributing their relevant expertise.” Two thirds of those polled predicted self driving cars would be powered by either electric or hybrid engines. The results were as follows: Google was ranked as the most promising player, having been in development the longest and having logged the highest amount of autonomous miles on public roads. Juniper’s research titled: “Autonomous Vehicles: Adoption, Regulation & Business Models 2015-2025″ however said that although the market is evolving and is optimistic, a solid monetization strategy has not become evident. A simpler vehicle enabled us to focus on the things we really wanted to study, like the placement of our sensors and the performance of our self-driving software.

The research noted that concerns over the decision making capabilities of these systems have been raised and questions have been asked about the decisions autonomous vehicles would take when presented with the Trolley Problem, where the autonomous car will be forced to choose between two disastrous outcomes. Secondly, we cared a lot about the approachability of the vehicle; slow speeds are generally safer (the kinetic energy of a vehicle moving at 35mph is twice that of one moving at 25mph) and help the vehicles feel at home on neighborhood streets. The Juniper study argued that the siloed nature of technology development requires stakeholders to collaborate and ensure a minimum level of safety for those in the hands of autonomous driving systems.

On the rear-end accident, ​one of Google’s Lexus model autonomous vehicles or “Google AV” was hit from behind by a car going 4 MPH while the Google AV waited to take a right at a red light. The report forms part of Juniper’s ongoing analysis of Connected Cars & Telematics and is now available to download from the Juniper Research website. Not everyone is convinced that autonomous cars are safe. 51% expressed concerns about being driven by a robot, with 45% lamenting the lack of control over a car with no steering wheel, gas or brake pedals. As one of the world’s largest social networking services, Facebook handles a lot of user information, and requires input from an astounding range of stakeholders 24 hours a day, 7 days a week — from both inside and outside the business.

Discover how Facebook was helped to connect remote employees, vendors, consultants, and partners to applications and web services quickly and reliably – without risking sensitive data. Autonomous vehicles like Google’s use lasers, radars, and cameras to interpret their environment and make driving decisions based on the information.

After coming to a complete stop, we nudge forward if we need to get a better view (for example, if there’s a truck or bus blocking our line of sight). In most cases your budget will get approved because the proposals are not only technically correct, but also provide good, credible evidence on how the spend aligns with key business objectives. That’s great in clear weather, but unfortunately those systems can all be limited or completely blinded by atmospheric and weather conditions, explained auto analyst C.

Our software and sensors are good at tracking multiple objects and calculating the speed of oncoming vehicles, enabling us to judge when there’s a big enough gap to safely make the turn. And because our sensors are designed to see 360 degrees around the car, we’re on the lookout for pedestrians stepping off curbs or cyclists approaching from behind. So, while self-driving cars do solve big problems and likely are the future, they’re just not as near in the future as many of us like to think, says Custer.

A McKinsey study noted that widespread adoption of self-driving cars could lead to a 90 percent reduction in vehicle crashes, experts believe that human drivers are engaged every day not just in navigating roads, but also in making ethical decisions as they drive, and these too will have somehow to be programmed into the software of the self-driving car. Drivers, for instance, know that it is right to swerve to avoid an animal racing across the road, or what to do when a school bus packed with children or even an aging bystander come on its way. Chris Gerdes, a professor at Stanford University and Patrick Lin, a professor of philosophy at Cal Poly, are exploring the ethical dilemmas that may arise when vehicle self-driving is deployed in the real world and believe as the technology advances, however, and cars become capable of interpreting more complex scenes, automated driving systems may need to make split-second decisions that raise real ethical questions.